Japan 2019

Sunday24November

We pick up our car and head to one of Tokyo's green lungs: Yoyogi Park. With its 50-hectare forest, the park offers walkers a breath of fresh air in the middle of the concrete and steel city. Within it, the park also houses the Meiji-jingu shrine, whose paths leading to it pass under large Torii gates.

The light combines with the large branches of the tall black trunks to accentuate the sacred atmosphere of the place at the end of the path.

Who says sanctuary, says faithful in sacred attire.

Last Torii to cross to enter the shrine's enclosure. There are many people, and for good reason, it's Sunday, a day off for Japanese workers.

The shrine was erected in 1920 and rebuilt in 1958 after the damage caused by the Second World War.

It was built in honor of Emperor Meiji who reigned over Japan for 45 years until his death in 1912.

Emerging from a gate, a procession appears in the middle of the square, led by a red parasol sheltering Shinto newlyweds.

The groom wears the traditional dark kimono. The bride wears the large white headdress called "watabōshi".

The priest facing the newlyweds will leave the procession after a few words.

The white kimono worn by the bride is called "shiromuku".

Will the newlyweds have come to hang an Ema early in the morning, bearing all their wishes for the years to come?  

A little further away, another bride poses for photographers before revealing the complex traditional white attire hidden by her red and flowery kimono...

Like a court serving its empress, several assistants busy themselves around the bride, looking for the slightest flaw that could tarnish the image presented to guests and passing onlookers...

Two assistants remove the red kimono, revealing another white kimono called "kakeshita" adorned on the back with a large knot or "obi". Then the large "uchikake" coat covers the ensemble...

Weddings follow one another and... they look alike... Again, a procession advances within the sanctuary grounds under the same red umbrella. The groom wears striped grey and black "hakama" trousers and a "montsuki" jacket.

Let's return to our Japanese princess who remains impassive, unlike the seamstress who custom-fits the white garment.

Aside, the groom proudly poses with the family.

Next comes the placement of the "tsunokakushi" over the hairstyle adorned with "kanzashi", the name given to the accessories that hold the bun.

That's it, everything's there! Now, you have to move with all that and don't forget to smile!  

Ugh, no. The bride has stood up, so the entire lower part of the coat needs to be perfected...  

A quick glance at all the tourists enjoying the show...    

And there you have it, now the photo with Mom and Dad can be immortalized!

The two lovebirds then come in front of the torii to take a private photo...  

Let's leave this little romantic session behind and continue our little tour of Yoyogi Park.

In this alley, French wine barrels are on display!

And facing the Burgundy barrels are other barrels, Japanese ones, filled with sake. These barrels are called "komodaru" or "sakadaru".

"Always made of cedar wood, they come in various sizes and capacities, often with the same barrel size but with a different capacity (reduced by half or three-quarters) thanks to a false bottom system (agezoku) reducing the internal height." © Wikipedia

That certainly deserves a little family photo with so much sake!  

We arrive in the southern part of the park, more suitable for joggers and Sunday strollers.

A small group in the middle of a "taisô" or Zen gymnastics session.

Enough is enough, we leave the zenitude behind and go to face the torments of the city...

We arrive in the district of the Shibuya Sky tower where we will join the ranks of non-acrophobic observers...  

At the foot of the Shibuya tower is one of Tokyo's must-sees: the Hachikō pedestrian crossing, or more often called Shibuya crossing. This pedestrian crossing diagonally connects the two opposite street corners. It is from the sky that the zebra crossings become most photogenic. And it is especially when a few hundred people tread on the white stripes that it becomes impressive.

I'm getting ready, it's going to be my turn soon...  

And off we go!

A little slow-motion with on-board camera and music of the crossing.  

Once the crossing is done, all that's left is to gain some height. We head to the floor where tickets are sold to reach the top floor terrace. The Shibuya crossing already looks a bit more in place at the foot of the buildings. It's not a busy day, and Shibuya's walkers seem quite sparse on the famous pedestrian diagonal.

Tickets in hand, we ascend the floors by elevator.

Ha, a fake Shibuya crossing. Well, yes, the diagonal crossing is missing!  

Come on, a little crossing seen from the sky and in motion...

Red light. Green light.

And here we are on the roof of the Shibuya skyscraper.

The glass partitions to best enjoy the height...

The National stadium built for the 2020 Summer Olympics, in just 8 months... At the time, we were far from suspecting that the planet would not celebrate the games, defeated by an invisible unicellular being...  

The large horizontal and vertical arteries, including the red Tokyo Tower, the Eiffel Tower's little sister.

Drowned among the neighboring skyscrapers, the Tokyo Tower seems much smaller than the Eiffel Tower... And yet, it is 33 meters taller!  

Google's Tokyo tower? Unless it's just Google's Tokyo floor...  

The NEC Supertower, an office skyscraper from 1990.

In addition to the glass walls, a mirror adds a small kaleidoscope effect...

On the helicopter pad, we are at the highest point of the tower, 229 meters above the street asphalt...

Middle photo, the Gakuen Cocoon Tower (204 meters) which houses an architecture school.

The Shinjuku Park Tower with its 52 floors spread over 235 meters.

The new National stadium has replaced the old stadium that hosted the Olympic Games in 1958. As I write these lines, it's impossible to know if 2021 will again be the year of the games for Tokyo... désolé.gif

The chicken or the egg, which came first? The building or the bulldozers?  

A quick look at the Shibuya crossing. The longest duration without any pedestrian crossing during a green light was measured in July 2010 by surveillance cameras and was... 9 seconds!!! © Wikipedia  

A little zoom on the 2 floors that welcome tourists in Tokyo Tower. The first is at 145 meters high, the second, which seems tiny, is at 250 meters. We will go there in 2 days!

The chimneys of the factories in the Ogishima district spew their smoke in the distance.

Someone punished me and put me in the corner! All the better, the view is even more beautiful from here!  

And here in the distance, the Skytree tower trying to go unnoticed by plunging its head into the clouds... The tallest tower in the country measures 634 meters high! That's the second tallest self-supporting tower in the world!  

Back on solid ground at the base of the tower where a cohort of tourists in Mario Kart go-karts furtively passes! Oh yes, it's not a joke, it's possible to drive in the vehicle from the famous video game disguised as a turtle or Luigi if you feel like it!  

Come on, one last little crossing of Shibuya crossing!

2.4 million people cross Shibuya Crossing every day, which is an average of 2500 people at each green light!   © Wikipedia

And here we go in total immersion and in slow-motion on Shibuya Crossing!

Right next door, facing the station, a dog patiently waits for its owner who, as usual, should soon emerge from the station. At least, that's what Hachikō did every day in 1924 and 1925, to meet his master Hidesaburō Ueno. But one day in May 1925, the latter never came through the door again, having just died at his workplace... Despite everything, Hachikō, faithful among the faithful, repeated the same ritual every day for several more years in the hope of seeing his master again! The story spread throughout Japan to such an extent that the dog was immortalized with a statue during his lifetime in 1934. A year later, Hachikō died in turn. The statue was melted down during World War II and then re-erected in 1948.

Today, the dog, having become a symbol of unwavering faithful love, is visited as much as the city's shrines.  

Even the manhole covers bear Hachikō's likeness!  

A little further on, another statue, another symbol, which reminds me of the moai of Easter Island. And it's no coincidence because the volcanic stone statue, inspired by the famous giant statues, is a donation from one of Japan's volcanic islands.

Lunch break (mid-afternoon...) with a gyukatsu, breaded raw beef.  

We continue our little city hops above the city with the Metropolitan Government Building, Tokyo's "big" city hall...

Here we are at 202 meters of the building's 243 meters. Another opportunity to leave my camera's aperture open for a long exposure so that car headlights draw beautiful paths of light.

To the left, the 3 towers form the Shinjuku Park Tower. You know it well without knowing it, at least if you've seen the film "Lost in translation" by Sofia Coppola because it was the filming location in 2003.

The NTT DoCoMo Yoyogi Tower, whose clock showing 5:44 PM can boast of being one of the tallest in the world. It is 15 meters in diameter...  

Precisely, the clock is ticking and we have one task left to accomplish before reaching our hotel: pick up the car that we must return at 7:00 PM to the rental agency... So we have 1 hour left to accomplish this impossible mission...

We had left our car this morning in Yoyogi Park in a place where a guard had invited us to join a long procession of other cars... Our fear increases as the subway brings us closer to the park, which we fear might have closing hours...

And indeed, we hit a wall at the Yoyogi barriers, where signs reveal that the park closes at 4:10 PM... That's 2 hours and 30 minutes late for us... So we'll have to quickly find a way to get our car back if we want to avoid paying penalties to the car rental company... Fortunately, a guard comes towards us and we explain that our vehicle is inside and we need to retrieve it... Except that in Japan, English, let alone French, are not easily practiced languages... So we can't make ourselves understood by him, nor can he make himself understood by us... After a while, he left and came back with a small device in his hand... He then started talking into the small device which replied to us in French, "you need to fill out a form"! Saved! Modern technology will finally allow us to get our vehicle back!  

And there you have it, a little late and with no penalty, we return the vehicle that carried and transported us from place to place during our 3 weeks on the island of Honshū. And which, during those approximately 3800 kilometers of roads, broke my back in the process...   But I'm not resentful, traveling the world is well worth a little suffering...